Tag: Android Oreo

For readers who are in the Essential Phone beta program, you have a new second beta for Android Oreo rolling out to you today.  The new build is version OPM1.170911.213 for those keeping score and brings a handful of new features as well as a significant number of bug fixes from the first beta.  The new build is 142MB in size so it is advisable to download it via WiFi.

As for new features, this new build brings some of the standard Oreo features to the PH-1.  These include:

• Smart text selection
• Instant apps
• Picture-in-picture

Also, sign-in to apps has been improve as has the overall startup time of the Essential Phone.  All of these are positive steps in the evolution of Essential’s Oreo build as it brings more of the standard features of Oreo to the device.

Today’s Deal is on the powerful, 5.2″ Sony Xperia XZs.  The XZs is a revamped version of last year’s XZ and has, as you would expect from Sony, some pretty impressive specs.  Today, the XZs has dropped in price down to $399 on Amazon.  That is its lowest price ever.

The Xperia XZs is powered by the Snapdragon 820 processor clocked at 2.2GHz, has 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage.  That storage can be expanded and additional 256GB thanks to the MicroSD slot.  The XZs is IP68 rated against water and dust intrusion and, a not-so-common thing here in the US, it is a dual-SIM phone.  The display is a 5.2″ FHD and all of this is powered by a 2900mAh battery that is charged via a USB-C port and it supports Quick Charge 3.0 technology.

What really makes the XZs however are the cameras.

Good news for those of you who have the ZTE Axon 7 phone.  The company has taken to their support forums to let users know that the Android Oreo update for the device is “just around the corner”.

William Guo of ZTE posted in the company’s support forums for the 5.5″ phone that the Oreo update is now in development and that they are working on perfecting it before releasing it.

We are announcing  now that we are already developing android 8 for the Axon 7, your positive feedback has been inspiring us a lot and made us very happy and because of this we try to get it customer ready as soon as  possible for the best customers in the world, and I ask for your understanding because we still need some time to perfect it.

With no definite timeline given, it could still be several months before Axon 7 owners see the update – but at least you know it is coming at some point.

Last week I published a list of Android Wear watches that would be seeing the Android Oreo update.  At the time of that post, only a handful of watches had started to see the update being pushed down to them via an OTA.

What a difference a week makes.

Google has updated the list on their site and now 15 of the 30 watches slated to get the update how have it rolling out.  It is a very fast roll out for a big update like this.  Here are the Android Wear watches that now have Oreo coming to them via an OTA update:

• Fossil Q Venture
• LG Watch Sport
• Louis Vuitton Tambour
• Michael Kors Sofie
• Montblanc Summit
• Hugo BOSS BOSS Touch
• Movado Connect
• Tommy Hilfiger 24/7 You
• Guess Connect
• Gc Connect
• Fossil Q Founder 2.0
• Fossil Q Marshal
• Fossil Q Wander
• Michael Kors Access Bradshaw
• Michael Kors Access Dylan

As for those watches that are slated to get it but haven’t seen it yet, they are after the break.

As expected, Google has released the December 2017 Android Distribution Report this week.  The report reflects the version of Android on devices that visited the Google Play Store for the 7 day period ending December 11, 2017 and for those of you who keep track of this monthly report, you won’t find many surprises.

With the exception of Android Nougat and Android Oreo, the two latest version of the platform, all previous version saw a decline or no change in usage from the November report to this one.  Android Nougat grew some 2.7% in usage in that time, by far the biggest gainer.  It now has a 23.3% share of devices coming to the Play Store but it is still behind Android Lollipop and Android Marshmallow.  Marshmallow, version 6.x of Android, leads the pack overall with 29.7% of devices running that version.

As for the latest version of Android, Oreo, it continues a very slow adoption on devices.  It now is on .5% of devices, a jump of .2% over November.

Last week I posted about Google releasing the Android Oreo update for Android Wear.   But, like Android phones, the question of which watches would be getting the update was a bit foggy at the time.  Now Google has attempted to clear it up with an update to the a support page.

The page outlines the devices that have already started receiving the 8.0 update and which ones are “currently pursuing” the update.  As for devices already receiving it, here is the list:

• Fossil Q Venture
• LG Watch Sport
• Louis Vuitton Tambour
• Michael Kors Sofie
• Montblanc Summit

These devices have the update rolling out now and it has been widely reported that the Fossil Q Venture and LG Watch Sport were amongst the first.